The present invention is generally directed to a system for reading indicia on a vehicle, container, or package. More particularly, the invention is directed to a system for reading bar codes on moving vehicles, containers, or packages from a remote location.
Motorists who daily use a pay-for-park parking garage often pay for use of the garage on a monthly or yearly basis. To gain access to the garage, these motorists are typically issued a key card which they insert into a card reader to open a gate. Typically, using such a key card requires the motorist to stop the vehicle, roll down a window or open a door, and insert and retract the card. Such systems present unnecessary impediments to the motorist""s access to the garage.
Motorists who often use a toll road may also pay for use of the road on a monthly or yearly basis, or on a pay-per-use basis. In some known systems, radio-frequency transponders are issued to the motorist which transmit a signal to a receiving device alongside an on-ramp or off-ramp. These signals from the transponder identify the motorist, and provide for billing the motorist for the use of the toll road, or for opening a gate to give the motorist access to the toll road. Typically, these transponders require mounting on or in the vehicle, and they must be powered by their own batteries or by the vehicle""s battery. Such transponders add significant cost to the toll road access and billing system, a cost which is typically passed on to the motorist in the form of higher tolls.
What is needed, therefore, is an inexpensive, easy to implement, easy to use, and low-maintenance means for identifying moving vehicles and other types of moving containers or packages, such as vehicles entering parking garages or toll roads, or containers moving along a conveyor belt.
The foregoing and other needs are met by an apparatus for reading indicia, such as a bar code, from a remote location. The apparatus includes a light source for illuminating the indicia, preferably with infrared illumination. The indicia is included in a reflective medium, disposed remotely from the light source, which reflects the illumination provided by the light source. The portions of the illumination reflected from the indicia comprise a reflected indicia image. The apparatus includes a light sensing device which is also disposed remotely from the reflective medium. The light sensing device receives the reflected indicia image and generates an indicia image signal based thereon. An indicia processing system receives and operates on the indicia image signal to extract indicia information therefrom. The indicia and reflective medium may be attached to a motor vehicle, a trailer portion of a tractor/trailer rig, a railroad box car or container, or any other type of vehicle, package, or cargo container.
In preferred embodiments of the invention, the light source and the light sensing device may be located up to 75 feet or more away from the reflective medium, and the reflective medium may be moving at speeds of up to 85 miles per hour or more relative to the light source and the light sensing device. To prevent blurring of the reflected indicia image, the infrared illumination is preferably provided in pulses, and the light sensing device is shuttered in synchronism with the pulses.
Thus, the invention provides a means for reading a bar code, or other such indicia, on a vehicle or container moving at a high rate of speed. Since the light sensing device need not be immediately adjacent the bar code in order to read it, the invention may be used to read the bar code from the side of or from above a highway, railroad track, or conveyor belt as the vehicle, railroad car, or container speeds by.